OSLO, Norway - Mobile Web use has grown by leaps and bounds in 2008 according to reports and surveys from the past few months, and tech experts expect that use to increase exponentially in the coming years.
Opera Software has released a State of the Mobile Web report suggesting that data traffic to mobile phones jumped 463 percent in November compared to one year ago, with page views on the rise by 303 percent. Techworld says the statistics were based on the Opera Mini-browser that employs Internet-hosted servers and pre-processes the data before it is downloaded to a phone.
It's of little surprise that the U.S. is the leader in mobile Web use increase. Both the U.S. and Canada find Blackberry at the top of the list of devices used, while in much of Europe and Mexico, Nokia and Sony Ericsson take the top spots.
Opera CEO Jon von Tetzchner told Techworld, "More people viewing more pages on mobile phones is the clear trend." He also suggested that "the real promise of the mobile Web is in connecting those who do not have broadband. The next billion people will use the Web first on their mobile phones."
Additionally AdMob, the mobile advertising marketplace, recently reported (based on its advertisers) that the mobile Web has grown by more than 100 percent in the past 12 months, with a 20 percent increase since May alone. A good part of this growth belongs to Apple's iPhone and iPod touch devices, up 32 percent in June and ranked as the ninth most popular mobile device for online browsing/ad impressions.
Ranked number one among the most visited sites in the U.S. is Google, followed by Facebook, which beat out MySpace for the first time.
In related news, Business Week's 2008 list of the world's 10 most influential companies includes Apple and Google, but Microsoft only ranked in the Top 20. Additionally, USA Today just announced the launch of an iPhone App and recently, the Associated Press initiated a multimedia service, "Mobile News Network," for Virgin Mobile USA handsets.
